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The  Holy  War 

"Made  in   Germany" 


By 

Dr.  C.  Snouck  Hurgronje 

Professor  of  the  Arabic  Language  in  the   University   of 

Leiden,    Holland ;     Councillor    to    the    Dutch 

Ministry  of  the  Colonies,  etc.,  etc. 


With  a  Word  of  Introduction  by 
Richard  J.  H.  Gottheil 

Columbia  University,  N.  Y, 


>    1 


>       >  ■   >      :        •  ^  >   ■>  ^ 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 
Cbe    fjnicftcrbocfter    press 

1915 


1) 


M^"^^ 


)'■'■ 


Copyright,  1915 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 


'Cbe  IRnfcftetbocfter  ipress,  IWew  l^orft 


INTRODUCTION 

nPHE  proclamation  of  a  ''Holy  War'' 
by  the  Sheikh-iil-Islam  at  Constanti- 
nople has  excited  interest  above  and 
beyond  its  connection  with  the  present 
war.  It  has  raised  the  whole  question 
of  the  validity  and  effectiveness  of  this 
measure  as  a  political  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  a  modern  Mohammedan  govern- 
ment. Students  of  Islam  have  asked 
themselves  of  what  use  this  weapon,  taken 
from  the  arsenal  of  a  theocratic  form  of 
sovereignty,  could  be  in  a  state  which  is 
in  process  of  conforming  to  the  present- 
day  theory  of  secular  and  democratic 
control.  The  development  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire  since  the  granting  of  the  Consti- 
tution in  1908  has  been  followed  with  an 
interested  eye  by  those  of  us  who  have  felt 


m 


a257Sl 


IV  Introduction 

the  immense  possibilities  inherent  in  the 
Turkish  people  and  latent  in  Turkish  soil. 
It  is  with  distinct  pleasure  that  we  read 
the  following  study  of  a  knotty  problem ; 
for  it  is  worked  out  with  the  hand  of  a 
master.  There  are  few  so  well  equipped 
or  so  competent  to  effect  such  a  study — 
especially  in  the  relations  of  the  question 
to  the  larger  problems  of  the  day — as  is 
Dr.  C.  Snouck  Hurgronje.  One  of  the  rare 
Europeans  who  have  ever  travelled  in  that 
part  of  Arabia  considered  by  Mohammed- 
ans to  be  sacred  and  exclusive,  his  stay 
of  eight  months  in  the  capital  of  their 
faith  (1884-1885)  enabled  him  not  only 
to  write  the  most  complete  and  the  most 
reliable  history  of  that  city  {Mekka, 
Leiden,  1888),  but  also  to  talk  with  the 
faithful  from  all  the  corners  of  the 
Mohammedan  world.  As  Councillor  to 
the  Government  of  Netherlands-India,  he 
spent  the   years   1 889-1 906  in  Batavia, 


Introduction  v 

where  he  came  into  closest  touch  with  the 
development  of  Islam  in  the  farthest  East. 
He  has  laid  down  many  of  his  conclusions 
in  his  comprehensive  work  on  the 
Achehnese  {De  Atjehers,  Leiden,  1903- 
1904;  English  translation,  London,  1906). 
His  scholarly  lectures  on  the  origins  of 
Islam,  given  before  various  American 
imiversity  audiences  in  the  spring  of  19 14, 
will  long  be  remembered  for  the  cool 
judgment  and  the  careful  poise  they 
evinced.  In  the  periodical  publications 
of  learned  societies  he  has  contributed 
numerous  essays  which  easily  place  him 
in  the  very  forefront  of  authorities  on 
the  subject  which  he  has  made  his  own. 
The  study  which  is  here  presented  to  the 
English-reading  public  appeared  originally 
in  the  Dutch  periodical  De  Gidsy  19 15, 
No.  I,  under  the  title  "Heilige  Oorlog 
Made  in  Germany."  It  has  been  ably 
translated  by  Professor  Joseph  E.  Gillet 


vi  Introduction 

of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  with  the 
distinct  attempt  to  preserve  as  much  of 
the  style  of  the  author  as  the  English  lan- 
guage will  permit.  I  am  glad  of  the 
opportunity  to  express  publicly  my  thanks 
to  Professor  Gillet  for  the  readiness  with 
which  he  accepted  the  task  I  laid  upon  him. 

Richard  Gottheil. 


Columbia  University  in  the 

City  of  New  York 

March,  JQiS' 


The  Holy  War 
"Made  in   Germany" 


,    1  1  T  >  '  '  '  ' 

J    >  »  »       »    ,        ,  ,      '         1        »    \      '       '  " 


The  Holy  War 
"Made  in   Germany 


>> 


/Wl  ORE  than  ten  years  ago  I  had  a  con- 
versation with  a  Tiirk  of  a  highly 
intellectual  type  about  religious  fanati- 
cism and  its  bearing  on  political  situa- 
tions. He  concluded  his  considerations 
on  this  subject  about  as  follows:  *'In 
former  times  the  inhabitants  of  the  civil- 
ized world  used  to  destroy  each  other  for 
being  at  variance  about  the  mysteries  of 
the  other  world.  Now,  however,  glory 
be  to  Allah,  humanity  has  overcome  this 
barbarous  custom  and  everybody  is  free 
to  believe  what  he  likes.  But  what  good 
is  this  to  us,  as  long  as  wars  continue  to 
be  waged  on  account  of  economic  and 

3 


4  The  Holy  War 

political  interests,  wars  of  which  the 
fanaticism  is  not  to  be  outdone  by  that 
of  the  bitterest  religious  strife,  and  of 
which  the  destructiveness  is  continuously 
being  increased  by  our  immense  technical 
progress?  Under  such  circumstances  a 
quiet  enjoyment  of  the  hard- won  freedom 
of  thought  is  out  of  the  question." 

This  utterance  ever  again  obtrudes  it- 
self on  my  memory  in  connexion  with  the 
events  that  are  taking  place  at  present. 
Large  groups  of  men,  kept  apart  by  vary- 
ing political  and  economic  interests,  have 
for  years  and  years  consumed  an  impor- 
tant part  of  their  intellectual  and  material 
resources  in  devising  means  by  which,  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  they  might  destroy 
each  other;  and  now,  at  last,  the  long- 
expected  spark  has  fallen  on  the  accumu- 
lated fuel.  Every  one  of  the  belligerents 
is  horrified  by  the  idea  of  responsibility 
for  the   crimes   against  mankind  which 


**Made  in  Germany"  5 

they  are  perpetrating  in  common.  The 
ctilture  they  shared  with  each  other  has 
been  shelved  and  finds  its  only  expression 
in  a  dull  series  of  contentions  where  each 
one  charges  the  other  with  the  guilt  of 
what  they  have  all  carefully  planned 
together.  The  sceptical  irony  of  my 
Turkish  friend  was  not  unjustified.  Not 
that  it  teaches  us  anything  new.  Only  in 
this  respect  might  his  utterance  be  some- 
what surprising  to  those  of  us  who  are 
not  familiar  with  the  Mohammedan  world, 
that  it  shows  a  Turk  recognizing  without 
restriction  general  religious  peace  and 
freedom  of  thought  as  an  undisputed 
possession.  Considered  from  this  point 
of  view  the  words  quoted  here  are  the 
more  valuable,  as  they  express  with 
tolerable  accuracy  the  opinion  of  all 
Turkish  intellectuals  on  the  problem  of 
religion. 

This  tolerance  seems  irreconcilable  with 


6  The  Holy  War 

the  prescriptions  of  the  Mohammedan 
law  concerning  the  attitude  towards  the 
adherents  of  other  reHgions.  For,  ac- 
cording to  this  law,  which  as  a  whole 
claims  divine  authority,  the  whole  world 
of  man  is  to  be  subjected  to  the  Moham- 
medan community  and  is  also,  as  far  as 
possible,  to  be  incorporated  by  it  in  a 
spiritual  sense.  That  this  aim  may  be 
attained,  the  community  of  the  faithful 
is  to  do  jihad,  i.  e.,  carry  on  a  holy  war 
against  all  that  are  still  living  outside 
the  circle  of  its  authority.  The  leader- 
ship in  the  jihad,  the  determination  of 
time,  place,  and  means,  is  one  of  the  chief 
duties  of  the  head  of  the  community,  the 
Caliph,  the  successor  of  Mohammed  as 
supreme  governor,  supreme  judge,  and 
supreme  commander  of  all  the  Moslims. 
As  the  interests  of  Islam  in  his  opinion 
require  it,  he  is  to  carry  on  this  war  with 
more  or  less  energy  or  even  temporarily 


**Made  in  Germany 


>♦ 


to  desist  from  it.  Under  no  circum- 
stances may  he  agree  to  a  suspension  of 
the  offensive  against  a  nation  of  unbeliev- 
ers for  more  than  ten  years.  Provided 
they  subject  themselves  to  the  Moham- 
medan state  authority  and  are  satisfied 
with  the  position  of  subjects  without  civic 
rights,  adherents  of  the  Jewish  and  of  the 
Christian  religion,  and  of  such  religions 
as  obtain  equal  recognition  with  those, 
are  granted  the  exercise  of  their  religion, 
though  with  certain  restrictions.  In  the 
case  of  real  heathens  subjection  must  be 
accompanied  by  conversion. 

The  jihad-program  assumes  that  the 
Mohammedans,  just  as  at  their  first  ap- 
pearance in  the  world,  continuously  form 
a  compact  unity  under  one  man's  leader- 
ship. But  this  situation  has  in  reality 
endured  so  short  a  time,  the  realm  of 
Islam  has  so  quickly  disintegrated  into 
an  increasingly  large  number  of  princi- 


8  The  Holy  War 

palities,  the  supreme  power  of  the  so- 
called  Caliph,  after  flotirishing  for  a  short 
period,  has  become  so  much  a  mere  word, 
that  even  the  ji/?a^-prescriptions  have  had 
to  be  adapted  to  this  state  of  crumbling 
authority.  As  in  most  other  respects  so 
also  concerning  the  waging  of  the  holy 
war,  the  law  therefore  transfers  the  author- 
ity and  the  duties  of  the  one  Caliph  to 
the  various  territorial  heads,  to  each  one 
for  the  extent  of  his  dominion.  Now  it 
is  evident  that  this  shifting  of  authority 
from  one  to  many  is  a  great  simplifying 
influence  for  the  internal  government; 
but  it  is  equally  evident  that  by  this  dis- 
integration the  continuance  of  the  world- 
conquest,  as  it  was  started  in  the  first 
century  of  Islam,  is  made  impossible. 

To  be  sure,  there  were  a  number  of  other 
causes  which  stemmed  the  first  wild  rush 
of  the  Moslim  legions.  They  met  fron- 
tiers where  resistance  could  not  be  broken 


**Made  in  Germany''        .    9 

at  once,  and  the  enjoyment  of  what  had 
been  conquered  weakened  their  energy. 
The  great  deeds  of  the  first  generations 
were  idealized  in  the  imagination  of  the 
later  ones,  .the  stains  removed  from  them, 
and  the  theory  of  their  desirable  continu- 
ance elaborated  in  details,  the  more 
casuistical  as  their  realization  was  getting 
further  outside  the  sphere  of  possibilities. 
Only  where  a  Mohammedan  territory  is 
attacked  by  a  nation  of  unbelievers,  there 
the  duty  of  defence  is  put  upon  the  whole 
of  the  population.  Offensive  action  is 
justified  only  when  it  is  ordered  and  regu- 
lated by  a  recognized  head  of  the  state. 
Where  unbelievers  succeed  in  subjecting 
a  Moslim  population,  the  latter  must  not 
resign  itself  to  this  state  of  submission, 
but  must  grasp  the  first  opportimity  for 
either  throwing  off  the  yoke  or  for  emi- 
grating to  an  independent  Moslim  coun- 
try ;  and  this  as  much  in  order  to  ward  off 


lo  The  Holy  War 

the  danger  with  which  their  own  religion 
is  threatened,  as  in  order  to  strengthen 
the  ranks  of  the  faithful  for  the  struggle 
against  the  enemy,  i.  e.,  the  non-subjected 
unbelievers.  Even  if  the  impossibility  of 
effective  resistance  or  emigration  should 
endure  for  centuries,  the  relation  of 
dependency  upon  a  non- Mohammedan 
state-authority  created  thereby  is  to  be 
accepted  onl}^  as  temporary  and  abnormal. 
The  whole  set  of  laws  which,  according 
to  Islam,  should  regulate  the  relations 
between  believers  and  unbelievers,  is  the 
most  consequent  elaboration  imaginable 
of  a  mixture  of  religion  and  of  politics  in 
their  mediaeval  form.  That  he  who  pos- 
sesses material  power  should  also  domi- 
nate the  mind  is  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
course;  the  possibility  that  adherents  of 
different  religions  could  live  together  as 
citizens  of  the  same  state  and  with  equal 
rights  is  excluded.     Such  was  the  situa- 


**Made  in  Germany"  ii 

tion  in  the  Middle  Ages  not  only  with 
the  Mohammedans :  before  and  even  long 
after  the  Reformation  onr  ancestors  did 
not  think  very  differently  on  the  matter. 
The  difference  is  chiefly  this,  that  Isl^m 
has  fixed  all  these  mediaeval  regulations 
in  the  form  of  eternal  laws,  so  that  later 
generations,  even  if  their  views  have 
changed,  find  it  hard  to  emancipate  them- 
selves from  them.  This  emancipation 
became  all  the  more  difficiilt  because  both 
the  multitude  and  the  scribes  climg  the 
more  tightly  to  this  questionable  legacy 
of  their  ancestors,  the  more  circimi- 
stances  seemed  to  flout  the  realization  of 
this  mighty  program.  It  is  a  fact  that 
in  the  countries  of  Islam  all  through  the 
centuries  little  care  has  been  given  to  the 
education  of  the  masses,  and  the  idea  of 
a  future  world-domination  was  too  pleas- 
ing to  their  vanity  to  be  lightly  discarded. 
The  jurists,  in  their  narrowness,  did  not 


12  The  Holy  War 

partake  of  the  fulness  of  real  life;  they 
anxiously  preserved  the  forms  of  the 
ancient  ideals  without  noticing  that  their 
contents  had  vanished.  To  them  the 
appreciation  of  religious  freedom  by  in- 
tellectual Turks,  such  as  the  friend  quoted 
above,  was  and  still  is  a  frivolous  conces- 
sion to  the  debased  spirit  of  the  times. 

Nevertheless  the  minds  went  on  their 
forward  march,  in  the  past  century  often 
with  surprising  rapidity.  Through  the 
very  harshness  of  Mohammedan  society 
and  the  inefficiency  and  corruption  of 
the  Mohammedan  governments  the  whole 
territory  of  Islam,  in  contrast  to  its 
conscious  program  of  world-dominion, 
gradually  came  under  European  influence. 
This  has  gone  so  far  already  that  more 
than  ninety  per  cent,  of  all  Mohammedans 
live  in  conquered  territory  or  in  protecto- 
rates under  the  political  rule  of  European 
powers,  whereas  the  independence  of  the 


**Made  in  Germany'*         -  13 

remaining  part,  chiefly  Turkey,  is  main- 
tained in  appearance  only  by  a  certain 
cleverness  in  balancing  between  the  large 
powers  which  are  vying  for  its  tutelage. 

This  coming  into  contact  of  the  ter- 
ritory of  Isl^m  and  the  world  outside 
which  has  ended  with  the  total  loss  of 
the  former's  political  independence,  was 
originally  brought  about  by  the  necessity 
of  Europe  to  expand  economically,  that 
is,  by  the  self-interest  of  the  nations 
which  were  able  to  shake  off  the  dust  of 
the  Middle  Ages  and  which  overtook  the 
Mohammedans  in  a  spiritual  as  well  as  in 
a  material  sense.  Later  on  only  did  the 
narrow  idea  of  exploitation  give  way  to 
that  of  annexation  and  eventually  to  that 
of  complete  absorption  of  the  conquered 
territories,  in  the  sense  that  the  popula- 
tion was  to  be  educated  into  partaking, 
as  far  as  they  could  and  was  deemed  ex- 
pedient, of  the  culture  of  the  conquerors. 


14  The  Holy  War 

This  was  not  done  at  one  stroke;  the 
struggle  between  the  egotism  of  the  guar- 
dians and  their  sense  of  duty  to  their 
wards  is  still  in  full  swing.  But  the 
European  guardians,  even  those  for  whom 
the  consequent  application  of  the  newer 
principles  is  often  too  hard  a  task,  would 
even  now  be  ashamed  to  profess  any  other 
principle  of  government  but  that  of  a 
pure  harmony  between  the  interests  of 
two  nations,  of  which  one  has  been  sub- 
ordinated by  history  to  the  other.  The 
Mohammedans  under  direct  or  indirect 
European  government  have  already  de- 
rived considerable  benefit  from  this;  and 
one  may  say  that  on  the  whole  they  are 
better  off  than  their  co-religionists  in 
the  quasi-independent  states,  where  they 
suffer  the  disadvantages  both  of  a  corrupt 
administration  and  of  the  struggle  for 
economic  gain  between  the  great  powers 
of  the  West.     Still,  the  oppression  under 


**Made  in  Germany'*        .  15 

which  the  population  laboiirs  in  such  a 
country  as  Turkey  has  also  excited  aspira- 
tions to  intellectual  development.  The 
Young-Turk  movement  of  these  late 
years  loudly  speaks  for  that. 

In  the  more  highly  developed  circles 
of  all  Mohammedan  countries  the  con- 
viction has  become  general  that  the 
mediaeval  mixture  of  religion  and  politics, 
which  the  system  of  Islam  wanted  to 
uphold  for  ever,  is  not  of  our  times.  The 
Mohammedans  have  become  inferiors  in 
this  world,  politically  and  socially;  so 
much  so  that  the  idea  of  a  world-dominion 
fotmded  on  their  religion  could  not  keep 
an3rthing  of  its  attraction  for  all  but  the 
ignorant.  The  others  are  almost  ashamed 
of  the  presumption  expressed  by  the 
teaching  of  the  jihdd,  and  try  hard  to 
prove  that  the  law  itself  restricts  its 
application  to  circumstances  which  do 
not  occur  any  more. 


i6  The  Holy  War 

The  lesson  of  tolerance  was  least  easily 
impressed  on  the  nations  which  had  stood 
in  the  front  rank  in  the  political  heyday 
of  Islim,  least  of  all  on  the  Turks  who 
had  played  the  leading  part  in  the  last 
scene  of  glory.  When  in  1258  Bagdad 
was  destroyed  by  the  Mongols  and  the 
Abasside  Caliphate,  dating  more  than 
five  centuries  back,  was  wiped  out,  the 
Mohammedan  world  was  not  lifted  from 
its  hinges,  as  would  have  happened  if  the 
Caliphate  still  had  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  central  government  of  the  Mo- 
hammedans. In  fact,  this  princely  house 
had  already  been  living  three  centuries 
and  a  half  on  the  faint  afterglow  of  its 
ephemeral  splendour;  and  if  during  that 
time  it  was  not  crowded  out  by  one  of  the 
many  powerful  sultans,  its  very  practi- 
cal insignificance  was  the  main  reason 
for  that.  So  insignificant  had  these 
caliphs    in    name    become    that    certain 


**Made  in  Germany"  17 

Etiropean  writers  sometimes  have  felt 
induced  to  represent  them  as  a  kind  of 
religious  princes  of  Islam,  who  volun- 
tarily or  not  had  transferred  their  secular 
power  to  the  many  territorial  princes  in 
the  wide  dominion  of  Islam.  To  them 
the  total  lack  of  secular  authority, 
coupled  with  the  often-manifested  rever- 
ence of  the  Moslim  for  the  Caliphate, 
appeared  unintelligible  except  on  the 
assumption  of  a  spiritual  authority,  a 
sort  of  Mohammedan  papacy.  Still,  such 
a  thing  there  never  was,  and  Islam,  which 
knows  neither  priests  nor  sacraments, 
could  not  have  had  occasion  for  it.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  the  multitude  preferred 
legend  to  fact:  they  imagined  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  Prophet  as  still  watching 
over  the  whole  of  the  Moslim  community; 
as,  according  to  historical  tradition,  he 
really  did  during  the  first  two  centuries 
following  the  Hijrah,  and  this  long  after 


i8  The  Holy  War 

the  institution  of  the  Caliphate  had  dis- 
appeared in  the  political  degeneration  of 
Isl^m.  However,  they  did  not  imagine 
him  as  a  pope,  but  as  a  supreme  ruler; 
above  all  as  the  amir-aUmu' -minm,  com- 
mander of  the  legions  of  Islam,  which 
sometime  would  make  the  whole  world 
bend  to  its  power. 

The  Caliph,  the  lieutenant  of  Allah's 
Messenger,  and  the  jihad,  the  holy  war 
against  the  whole  world  outside  Isl^m: 
with  those  two  names  was  indissolubly 
connected  the  remembrance  of  those  two 
brilliant  centuries  in  which  the  course  of 
circumstances  seemed  to  justify  the  Mo- 
hammedan ambition  for  world-dominion. 
Whatever  disappeared  in  reality  survived 
in  legend;  the  worship  of  the  shadow- 
Caliphs  of  Bagdad  made  it  easier  for 
many  Mohammedans  to  forget  the  failure 
of  their  political  ideal. 

When  Bagdad  had  fallen  and  a  large 


**Made  in  Germany"  19 

part  of  the  Abasside  family  had  been 
exterminated,  this  poHtical  fetishism  still 
had  its  after-effects ;  the  sultans  of  Egypt 
availed  themselves  of  it  by  making  one 
of  those  who  had  escaped  murder  continue 
the  tradition  of  the  dummy-Caliphate  in 
their  capital  and  thus  creating  the  impres- 
sion that  their  territory  had  now  become 
the  centre  of  Islam.  But  this  shadow  of 
a  shadow  was  to  fade  away  entirely  when 
the  sun  of  the  Ottomans  reached  its 
zenith.  Under  their  direction  Islam  ven- 
tured its  last  attempt,  not  to  subdue  the 
world,  to  be  sure,  but  at  least  to  become  a 
world-power  of  the  first  rank.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  taking  Constantinople  (1452), 
a  task  at  which  the  greatest  Moslim 
princes  of  yore  had  vainly  tried  their 
strength.  When  in  15 17  they  had  con- 
quered Egypt  and  subsequently  also  the 
province  of  the  holy  cities  of  Arabia, 
Mecca  and  Medina,  they  felt  themselves 


20  The  Holy  War 

strong  enough  to  try  resuscitating  the 
tradition  of  the  real  Caliphate;  or,  at 
least,  to  assume  the  part  of  fetish  them- 
selves. They  were  not  deterred  from 
this  even  by  the  express  prescription  of 
the  law,  which  requires  that  he  who  shall 
occupy  the  Caliphate  shall  be  descended 
from  the  noble  Arabian  house  of  Qoraish. 
The  sophistry  of  complaisant  jurists 
helped  them  to  remove  this  objection, 
and  the  multitude  did  not  resist  these 
tricks,  seeing  that  the  dreams  which 
they  connected  with  the  Caliphate  now 
seemed  to  turn  into  realities.  The  con- 
queror of  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Egypt, 
Western  Arabia,  Mesopotamia,  and  the 
empire  of  Byzantium,  whom  a  large  part 
of  Europe  considered  as  a  formidable  foe, 
might  confidently  substitute  his  sword 
as  a  fetish  for  the  powerless  pedigree  of 
the  Abassides. 

This   re-born    Caliphate   consequently 


**Made  in  Germany*'         '  21 

lacked  important  traditional  character- 
istics; and  in  other  respects  also  it  could 
not  be  considered  as  the  regular  continu- 
ation of  its  predecessor.  Several  of  the 
oldest  Mohammedan  countries  remained 
entirely  outside  the  Turkish  sphere  of 
influence;  and  those  were  not  only  such 
where,  as  in  Persia,  a  dynasty  opposed 
to  the  Turks  raised  the  banner  of  heresy, 
but  also  perfectly  orthodox  countries  in 
Central  Asia,  in  India,  in  North- Western 
Africa,  where  the  Turkish  sword  found 
no  occasion  to  assert  itself.  In  Morocco 
the  Turkish  Caliphate  was  even  directly 
ignored,  as  the  local  princes,  descendants 
of  the  Prophet,  themselves  assumed  the 
highest  title.  Elsewhere,  simultaneous- 
ly with  the  rise  of  the  Ottomans  or 
after,  there  arose  new  Mohammedan 
dominions  which  have  never  come  into 
contact  with  any  real  or  supposed  politi- 
cal centre  of    Islam;    such    as   those   in 


22  The  Holy  War 

the  Far  East  of  Asia  and  in  Central 
Africa. 

Indeed  the  usurpation  of  the  Caliph 
title  by  the  Ottoman  Sultans  had  only  this 
significance,  that  in  their  political  period 
of  splendour  they  wished  to  have  it  es- 
tablished beyond  dispute  that  no  other 
Moslim  prince  could  compare  with  them 
in  importance.  This  could  in  no  wise  be 
more  aptly  done  than  by  adding  to  all 
their  high-sounding  Persian  and  Turkish 
titles  the  name  of  the  most  exalted  office 
which  had  ever  existed  in  Islam.  To 
their  power  this  nominal  title  of  Caliph 
has  never  added  anything;  they  ruled 
only  what  their  armies  had  conquered 
and  outside  those  limits  they  did  not 
exert  the  slightest  influence. 

The  Turkish  sword  soon  lost  its  edge; 
long  before  the  policy  of  the  great  Euro- 
pean powers  gnawed  off  piece  after  piece 
from  the  realm  of  the  Ottomans,  several 


(( 


Made  in  Germany*'  23 


provinces  had  developed  into  separate 
feudal  dominions  under  hereditary  dynas- 
ties. Since  Turkey,  entirely  dependent 
in  its  policy  upon  non-Mohammedan 
powers,  can  only  claim  about  five  per 
cent,  of  the  Mohammedans  of  the  world 
as  its  subjects,  it  would  sound  highly 
ridiculous  to  have  the  Sultan  of  that 
realm  called  ''Lieutenant  of  God's  Mes- 
senger, Supreme  Commander  of  the  Faith- 
ful," if  also  outside  Turkey  one  were  not 
used  to  much  traditional  nonsense  in 
princely  titles. 

It  is  just  in  this  last  century  that  the 
Turks,  through  a  concourse  of  circum- 
stances, have  sometimes  succeeded  in 
coining  some  small  advantage  out  of 
this  doubtfully  legal,  now  meaningless 
title. 

Means  of  commimication  increased  a 
thousandfold  have  now  brought  into 
contact     Mohammedan     nations    which 


24  The  Holy  War 

formerly  knew  nothing,  or  hardly  any- 
thing, about  each  other's  existence.  The 
approximately  230,000,000  of  Moham- 
medans living  under  non-Moslim  rule 
mostly  do  not  possess  sufficient  historical 
remembrance  to  understand  that  the 
change  in  administration  has  been  an 
improvement  for  them.  They  see  the 
political  past  of  Islam  only  through  the 
veil  of  legend,  and  when  the  present  gives 
occasion  for  grievances  and  objections — 
and  where  are  these  lacking? — ^they  are 
rather  prone  to  believe  that  all  their 
complaints  would  be  cured,  if  only  the 
Commander  of  the  Faithful  could  take 
their  interests  in  hand.  Of  the  malad- 
ministration under  which  the  real  subjects 
of  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  are  labouring, 
they  hear  little  and  experience  nothing. 
And  the  Sultan,  who  has  been  the  worst 
in  this  respect,  until  in  1909  he  was  de- 
posed  and   exiled   by  his   subjects,   has 


**Made  in  Germany''  25 

worked  more  zealously  and  more  success- 
fiilly  than  any  of  his  predecessors  for  the 
dissemination  amongst  the  Mohamme- 
dans of  the  false  imaginations  concerning 
the  Caliphate.  His  wily  but  short-sighted 
policy,  which  brought  his  own  empire 
ever  nearer  to  its  fall,  made  him  seek 
solace  for  many  a  failure  in  Panislamic 
intrigues,  staged  by  unscrupulous  but 
mostly  ignorant  and  blundering  confed- 
erates, who  showed  the  credulous  the 
ideal  picture  of  a  Caliph,  assuring  them 
that  it  was  a  good  likeness  of  Abdul- 
hamid. 

There  has  often  been  talk  of  an  organi- 
zation of  Panislam  imder  the  direction  of  ^ 
Abdulhamid,  but  this  is  without  founda- 
tion. In  1897,  in  connexion  with  some 
foul,  secretly  circulated,  pamphlets,  which 
the  most  intimate  counsellors  of  the  Sul- 
tan in  vying  for  his  favour  had  let  loose 
against  each  other,  I  tried  to  describe  the 


26  The  Holy  War 

atmosphere  around  the  despot/  and  when, 
in  1908, 1  witnessed  the  first  two  months  of 
the  revolution  in  Constantinople,  I  found 
a  complete  justification  of  my  descrip- 
tion.'' That  gang  of  shallow  intriguers 
was  little  qualified  to  lead  a  serious  in- 
ternational movement.  They  exploited 
the  connexions  established  with  certain 
Mohammedans  of  consequence  in  non- 
Turkiwsh  territory  to  increase  their  own 
advantage  and  prestige,  without  be- 
ing of  any  real  use  in  the  resuscitation 
of  the  dead  Caliphate.  The  establish- 
ment of  a  few  Turkish  consulates  in 
Mohammedan  countries  under  European 
rule  also  failed  of  its  aim.  They  usually 
forgot  to  pay  the  consuls  their  salaries; 
the  consuls  did  not  even  know  the  lan- 


'"Eenige  Arabische  strydschriften  besproken,"  Tyd- 
schrift  van  het  Bataviaasch  Genootschap  van  Kunsten 
en  Wetenschappen,  vol.  xxxix.,  pp.  379-427. 

2  My  experiences  at  that  time  I  reported  in  the  Febru- 
ary issue  of  De  Cids,  1909. 


^'Made  in  Germany"  2^ 

guages  of  the  populations  amongst  whom 
they  lived,  and  took  no  pains  to  learn 
them.  Their  mostly  very  "advanced" 
manner  of  living  did  not  serve  to  heighten 
respect  for  the  man  who  sent  them. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Panislam  cannot  work 
with  any  program  except  with  the  worn- 
out,  flagrantly  unpracticable,  program 
of  world-conquest  by  Islam;  and  this 
has  lost  its  hold  on  all  sensible  adherents 
of  Islam;  whereas,  among  the  stupid 
multitude,  which  may  still  be  t  mpted  by 
the  idea  of  war  against  all  kdiirSy  it  can 
stir  up  only  confusion  and  unrest.  At 
most  it  may  cause  local  disturbances ;  but 
it  can  never  in  any  sense  have  a  con- 
structive influence. 

Probably  without  intention,  some  Euro- 
pean statesmen  and  writers  have  given  a 
certain  support  to  the  Panislamic  idea 
by  their  consideration,  based  on  an  ab- 
solute misunderstanding,  of  the  Caliphate 


28  The  Holy  War 

as  a  kind  of  Mohammedan  papacy.  Most 
of  all  did  this  conception  find  adherents 
in  England  at  the  time  when  that  country 
was  still  considered  to  be  the  protector 
of  the  Tiirk  against  danger  threatened 
by  Russia.  It  was  thought  useful  to 
make  the  British-Indian  Moslim  believe 
that  the  British  Government  was  on 
terms  of  intimate  friendship  with  the 
head  of  their  church.  Turkish  statesmen 
made  clever  use  of  this  error.  Of  course 
they  could  not  admit  before  their  Euro- 
pean friends  the  real  theory  of  the  Cali- 
phate with  its  mission  of  uniting  all  the 
faithful  under  its  banner  in  order  to  make 
war  on  all  kdfirs.  They  rejoiced  all  the 
more  to  see  that  these  had  formed  about 
that  institution  a  conception  which,  to 
be  sure,  was  false,  but  for  that  very  reason 
plausible  to  non-Mohammedans.  They 
took  good  care  not  to  correct  it,  for  they 
were   satisfied   with   being   able,    before 


**Made  in  Germany"  29 

their  co-religionists,  to  point  to  the  fact 
that  even  among  the  great  non- Moham- 
medan powers  the  claim  of  the  Ottomans 
to  the  Caliphate  was  recognized. 

Although  Panislam  was  not  organized, 
nevertheless  in  Mohammedan  countries 
under  European  rule  it  often  would  oppose 
the  normal  development  of  a  mutually 
desirable  relation  between  the  governing 
and  the  governed.  Speculating  on  dis- 
satisfaction in  every  form,  it  secretly 
worked  as  a  disturbing  element,  without 
there  being  any  hope  that  the  division 
caused  or  intensified  might  lead  to  im- 
provements. 

All  European  powers  must  have  hailed 
as  a  welcome  consequence  of  the  revolu- 
tion of  1908  the  fact  that  the  Young  Turks 
who  forced  the  re-establishment  of  the 
constitution  wanted  to  put  an  end  to  the 
mediaeval  mixture  of  religion  and  politics. 
The  upholding  of  Islam  as  a  state-religion 


30  The  Holy  War 

was  on  their  part  a  concession  to  the  old 
tradition,  without  prejudice  to  the  com- 
plete equality  of  the  adherents  of  all  reli- 
gions as  citizens  of  the  Turkish  Empire. 
Re-born  Turkey  was  to  be  a  modern 
constitutional  state  in  the  full  meaning  of 
the  word.  For  Caliphate  and  jihad  there 
was  no  room  in  such  a  state.  Turks  and 
Arabs,  Greeks,  Armenians,  and  Jews,  and 
whoever  else  lived  together  under  the 
Crescent,  were  to  co-operate  in  liberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity  to  make  Young 
Turkey  into  a  vState  respected  in  interna- 
tional life.  The  empire  of  the  Ottomans 
was  not  to  presume  on  any  interference 
with  co-religionists  living  under  non- 
Mohammedan  rule.  At  most  the  govern- 
ment, in  case  such  had  reason  to  complain 
about  the  violation  of  their  rights,  might 
permit  representations  to  be  made  similar 
to  those  which  the  Christian  powers  had 
so  often  addressed  to  Turkey  in  connex- 


**Made  in  Germany  -  31 

ion  with  alleged  oppression  of  Christian 
nations  under  Turkish  rule. 

Soon  these  ideals  were  shown  to  be  too 
exalted  for  the  time  being.  The  greed 
of  the  European  powers  did  not  grant 
Young  Turkey  the  rest  necessary  for 
internal  reform.  Upon  the  enthusiastic 
harmony  of  the  first  days  of  deliverance 
from  the  claws  of  despotism,  there  speed- 
ily followed  the  renascence  of  the  old 
internal  strife,  now  no  longer  held  in 
leash  by  the  common  fear  of  the  despot. 
The  Committee  of  Unity  and  Progress, 
which  before  or  behind  the  scenes  had 
the  direction  of  things,  found  itself  con- 
strained on  one  side  to  resort  again  to 
the  hateful  governing  methods  of  despot- 
ism, on  the  other  side  to  grant  many 
concessions  to  the  detriment  of  its  own 
program,  even  to  Moslim  orthodoxy  and 
to  the  beliefs  and  superstitions  of  the 
multitude.     The  fetish  of  the  Caliphate 


32  The  Holy  War 

had  to  be  exhtuned  again  from  the  mu- 
seum of  antiquities  where  it  had  tempo- 
rarily been  stored.  As  to  the  idea  of 
jihddy  which  was  so  closely  connected 
with  it,  the  European  powers  took  care 
that  it  was  not  forgotten.  Turkey  was 
continually  forced  to  a  jihad. 

When  we  translate  the  word  jihad  by 
*'holy  war"  this  is  justified,  inasmuch  as 
such  a  war  has  for  the  Mohammedans  a 
holy,  a  religious  character.  But  it  is  a 
mistake  to  imagine  that  besides  this  there 
exists  a  non-holy  or  secular  war.  Apart 
from  using  the  army  to  repress  revolt 
against  lawful  authority,  which  must 
be  considered  as  a  police  measure,  Islam 
knows  no  war  other  than  the  jihad,  and 
no  other  aim  to  the  jihad  than  the  defence 
of  the  interests  of  Islam  against  attacks 
by  non- Mohammedans  or  the  extension 
of  the  territory  of  Islam  to  the  detriment 
of  the  Ddr  al-Harb,  the  country  of  the 


**Made  in  Germany"  33 

unbelievers.  The  wars  which  Turkey 
had  to  carry  on  under  Abdulhamid 
against  Russia  and  against  Greece  have 
never  been  called  by  Turks  and  Arabs 
by  any  other  name  but  jihad,  even  if  they 
were  prudent  enough  not  to  use  that  term 
of  mediaeval  fanaticism  in  their  inter- 
course with  Europeans.  This  holds  true 
also  of  the  war  with  Italy  for  the 
possession  of  Tripoli  and  of  that  with 
the  Balkan  States.  For  the  Moham- 
medans, who  continue  in  the  old  fashion 
mixing  politics  and  religion,  there  is  no 
other  war  but  religious  war.  That  a 
special  edict  of  the  Sultan-Caliph  should 
be  needed  to  stamp  one  of  Turkey's  wars 
as  a  holy  war,  is  one  more  of  those  ridicu- 
lous misconceptions  of  things  Moham- 
medan, of  which  so  many  have  become 
current  in  Europe.  The  Turks  do  not 
usually  protest  against  such  nonsense; 
but    in    their    dealings    with    Europeans 


34  The  Holy  War 

they  mostly  endorse  it  when  their  interest 
requires  it.  For  no  Moslim  in  the  world, 
however,  when  Turkey  is  involved  in  war, 
does  the  question  whether  the  Sultan  has 
decreed  the  holy  war  possess  a  reasonable 
meaning.  All  this  ought  to  be  well  con- 
sidered if  one  is  to  understand  correctly 
the  political  events  of  these  days  in  so  far 
as  they  involve  Turkey. 

About  these  events  pamphlets  have 
been  published  in  Germany,  which  in 
certain  respects  perhaps  deserve  some 
attention  even  outside  that  country. 
Deutschland,  die  Turkei  und  der  Islam  is 
the  title  of  a  pamphlet  by  Hugo  Grothe, 
who  is  considered  as  qualified  in  the  field 
of  economics,  and  whose  former  writings 
contain  the  results  of  his  scientific  jour- 
neys in  European  and  Asiatic  Turkey, 
in  Persia  and  in  Tripolitania.  This  pam- 
phlet is  part  of  a  series,  Zwischen  Krieg 


*'Made  in  Germany"  35 

und  Frieden,  edited  by  Irmer,  Lamprecht, 
and  von  Liszt,  containing  political  articles 
for  the  public  at  large.  Amongst  its  con- 
tributors appears  Prince  von  Biilow. 

When  Grothe  departs  from  economic 
politics  he  at  once  shows  himself  to  be  in 
unfamiliar  surroundings.  The  political 
problem  of  Islam,  e.  g.,  is  not  clear  in  his 
mind.  The  Caliphate  he  calls  the  secular 
representation  of  the  religious  community 
of  the  Mohammedans,  a  rather  vague 
expression  of  the  idea  that  all  Moham- 
medans in  a  political  sense  are  legally 
subjects  of  the  Caliph;  who  to  be  sure  is 
kept  from  exercising  his  administrative 
rights  over  what  now  amounts  to  ninety- 
five  per  cent,  of  these  subjects  by  unbeliev- 
ing princes  whose  authority  is  necessarily 
illegal.  But  now  Grothe  on  another  page 
quotes  the  following  from  a  proclama- 
tion issued  by  the  Imperial  Governor  of 
Kamerun  to  the  native  population:  "We 


36  The  Holy  War 

are  further  given  help  by  the  Sultan 
in  Stambul,  who  in  matters  of  religion 
is  the  Supreme  Lord  of  all  Mohamme- 
dans," and  far  from  adding  the  necessary 
correction,  he  calls  this  official  nonsense 
"interesting/*  Grothe's  assertion  that  at 
the  outset  of  the  present  war  the  ''jihad 
of  Germany"  had  been  the  subject  of 
debates  and  prayers  in  the  mosques  of 
Turkey  is  perhaps  a  poetical  phrase,  for, 
even  if  we  translate  jihad  about  correctly 
as  "holy  war,"  still  our  "holy  war,"  as 
now  every  belligerent  calls  his  own  strug- 
gle, is  by  no  means  rendered  by  the 
Arabic-Mohammedan  jihad.  When  old- 
fashioned  pious  Mohammedans  refer  to 
this  w^ar  in  their  prayer,  the  prayer  will 
sound  about  as  follows:  "We  thank  Thee, 
Allah,  for  having  divided  the  legions  of 
the  Devil  against  themselves  and  because 
Thy  almightiness  forces  some  of  them 
to  support  the  defenders  of  Islam  with 


**Made  in  Germany"  37 

their  arms  and  their  men.  Arrange  all 
this,  0  Lord,  for  a  speedy  victory  of  the 
faithful  and  for  the  ruin  of  all  who  dis- 
obey Thee  and  Thy  Messenger."  Thus 
and  thus  only  is  the  conception  of  those 
Moslims  who  have  not  yet  been  suffici- 
ently sobered  by  history  to  share  the  view 
of  the  Turk  whose  words  I  quoted  at  the 
beginning  of  this  article. 

It  is  also  poetical  phrasing  of  Grothe's 
when  he  makes  an  earthquake  perceived 
at  Konia,  Bundur,  and  Sparta  contribute 
towards  giving  the  Turks  real  insight  into 
the  meaning  of  the  catastrophe  which 
has  befallen  us;  poetical  phrasing,  when 
in  his  travels  he  continually  hears  Turks, 
Arabs,  Kurds,  and  Anatolians  professing 
their  sympathy  for  Germany  and  express- 
ing views  on  contemporary  politics  which 
do  not,  either,  differ  one  jot  from  Grothe's 
own.  He  hears  them  expressing  those 
in  languages   of  which  he  understands 


38  The  Holy  War 

nothing,  for  the  two  Turkish  expressions 
which  Grothe  uses  are  unidiomatic.^ 

We  remain  nearer  to  reality  when  we 
follow  Grothe' s  survey  of  the  politico- 
economic  relations  between  Turkey  and 
Germany,  as  they  developed  in  the  last 
twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Germany,  he  says,  through  a  concourse 
of  unfavourable  circumstances,  has  been 
badly  outdistanced  in  the  race  of  the 
European  powers  for  the  economic  and 
commercial  advantages  which  are  to  be 
had  in  Turkish  territory.  In  fact,  a 
change  for  the  better  started  only  with 
the  concession  of  the  Anatolian  railway 
to  a  German  syndicate  (1888)  which  was 
followed  later  on  by  that  of  the  Bagdad 
railway.     One  gets  an  idea  of  the  rapid- 

^  On  his  journeys  Grothe,  being  a  German,  was  contin- 
ually referred  to  by  Turks  as  "our  friend,"  which  he 
translates  by  hizim  dost  instead  of  dostomuz,  and  his  Turk- 
ish translation  for  "a  German"  is  always  Alemanly  instead 
of  Alman  or  Almanjaly. 


**Made  in  Germany'*  39 

ity  of  the  movement  by  looking  at  the 
figures  of  imports  and  exports  combined, 
between  Germany  and  Turkey:  14  million 
for  1888,  but  for  1913,  200-250  million 
marks.  The  competition  with  England, 
France,  and  Russia  again  made  it  desir- 
able for  all  parties  that  their  spheres  of 
interest  should  be  determined.  Before 
the  war  the  understanding  had  come  so 
far  that  they  were  expected  in  the  present 
year  to  reach  an  agreement,  by  which 
England  would  receive  Southern  Meso- 
potamia as  its  economic  territory,  France 
Syria,  Germany  the  part  of  Mesopotamia 
and  Asia  Minor  which  is  bounded  on 
the  one  hand  by  the  34th  and  41st 
degrees  of  east  longitude,  and  on  the 
other  by  the  36th  and  39th  degrees  of 
northern  latitude,  whereas  the  northern 
part  of  Asia  Minor  was  to  be  given 
to  a  French-Russian  combine  for  railway 
construction. 


40  The  Holy  War 

For  this  economic  sphere  of  influence 
Germany  would  have  felt  slightly  grate- 
ful, but  by  no  means  satisfied.  Since 
August  she  has  started  pegging  out  quite 
different  frontiers,  on  the  assumption,  of 
course,  that  her  expectations  of  a  pro- 
pitious result  of  the  war  will  not  be  disap- 
pointed. For  this,  according  to  Grothe, 
she  has  every  right.  For  it  must  be 
considered  certain  that  in  case  Germany 
were  to  fail,  Russia  would  not  hesitate 
to  destroy  the  Turkish  Empire.  As 
Russia  cannot  find  in  the  Far  East  the 
ice-free  waterway  which  she  needs  for 
her  development  without  getting  into 
conflict  with  Japan,  and  not  in  the  Persian 
Gulf  without  getting  into  conflict  with 
England,  the  Empire  of  the  Czars  is  more 
than  ever  determined  to  possess  Con- 
stantinople. England,  who  formerly  has 
always  opposed  this,  would  now  support 
it;  in  return,  she  would  be  allowed  to  look 


**Made  in  Germany*'  41 

upon  Mesopotamia  and  Arabia  as  her 
own. 

Germany  alone  can  save  Turkey,  and 
she  has  a  huge  interest  in  doing  so  since 
only  the  preservation  of  the  complete 
integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  will 
make  it  possible  for  Germany  to  protect 
and  to  develop  the  economic  position 
which  she  has  gained  in  it.  Besides, 
Germany  is  the  only  one  among  the  large 
powers  with  which  Turkey  has  to  count 
who  would  not  wish  to  annex  a  single  foot 
of  the  country,  and  could  not  even  if 
she  wanted  to.  Germany's  geographical 
position  would  prevent  her  from  effec- 
tively protecting  such  possessions  and 
deriving  profit  from  them.  That  is  why 
during  the  twenty-five  years  of  her  more 
intimate  relations  with  Turkey,  Germany 
has  always  been  the  only  trustworthy 
friend  of  the  Empire  of  the  Sultan-Caliph. 
There  is  between  the  two  countries,  apart 


42  The  Holy  War 

from  all  questions  of  sentiment,  a  nattiral 
community  of  interests,  whereas  the  in- 
terests of  all  the  other  large  powers  can 
only  be  furthered  at  the  cost  of  Turkey's 
welfare,  and  finally  of  her  existence. 

Turkey  has  not  always  looked  at  it 
quite  in  this  light;  a  certain  distrust  had 
to  be  overcome,  fostered  by  the  unfair 
competition  of  those  who  envied  Ger- 
many and  also  partly  strengthened  by 
Germany's  often  too  feeble  policy.  But 
now  the  scales  have  fallen  from  the  eyes 
of  the  Young  Turks,  who  hold  the  helm 
of  state.  It  seems  that  in  Constanti- 
nople the}^  are  only  Vv^aiting  for  German 
victories  in  Northern  France  and  in 
Galicia — Grothe  wrote  before  the  Turkish 
declaration  of  war — before  uniting  with 
Germany  and  Austria  against  the  Allied 
Powers.  The  Turkish  army,  which  in 
its  organization  owes  so  much  already  to 
German  teaching  and  direction,  will  have 


'*Made  in  Germany'*  43 

great  need  of  German  help  and  support 
in  order  to  accomplish  its  task,  but  then 
it  will  also  constitute  a  far  from  contemp- 
tible ally.  This  will  be  especially  true 
if  the  Caliph  decrees  the  great  holy  war, 
the  jihad. 

Here  now  Grothe  finds  himself  quite 
at  sea,  as  he  does  not  know  that  for 
Mohammedans  of  the  old  stamp,  who 
have  not  taken  part  in  the  intellectual 
movement  of  the  Mohammedan  East 
in  the  last  few  years,  every  war  waged  by 
Turkey  is  a  jihad.  For  such  as  these  the 
question  is  not:  ''jihad  or  secular  war?'* 
but  "against  whom  has  Turkey  declared 
jihad?  ^'  And  then,  supposing  the  answer 
is  as  Grothe  imagines,  i.  e.,  jihad  "against 
all  powers  that  have  devoured  Moham- 
medan countries  and  thus  have  robbed 
Islam  of  its  splendour,"  the  question 
remains  whether,  as  Grothe  hopes  and 


44  The  Holy  War 

expects,  the  Mohammedan  nations  under 
European  rule  will  really  be  so  charmed 
by  the  call  to  arms  issued  in  the  name  of 
Sultan  Mehmed  Reshad,  that  they  will 
attack  their  masters  ^^here  with  secrecy 
and  ruse,  there  with  fanatical  courage,'' 
Grothe  already  sees  in  his  imagination 
how  ^'the  thus  developed  religious  war'' — so 
he  openly  calls  it — is  to  mean  especially 
for  England  ''  the  decline  of  her  greatness." 
We  know  that  Turkey  is  at  present 
engaged  in  an  experiment  with  just  such 
a  holy  war,  as  suggested  by  Grothe  and 
his  intellectual  kin.  The  highest  ju- 
ridical authority  in  Constantinople,  the 
Sheich-ul-Islam,  who  since  the  revolu- 
tion of  1908  has  ever  been  a  creature  and 
an  instrument  of  the  Young  Turk  Com- 
mittee, has  answered  affirmatively  a 
series  of  questions  submitted  to  him  by 
the  insignificant  successor  of  Abdulhamid, 
with  whom  the   leaders    of  the  Young 


**Made  in  Germany"  45 

Turk  Committee  can  do  as  they  please. 
In  reality  those  questions  and  answers 
together  form  a  proclamation  of  Enver 
and  Talaat,  the  leading  ministers  on  the 
Committee,  and  both  he  who  asks  the 
questions  (the  Sultan)  and  he  who  answers 
them  (the  Sheich-ul-Islam)  fill  the  office 
of  puppets.  This  proclamation  of  the 
men  on  the  Committee  of  Unity  and 
Progress  (by  which — let  it  be  noted! — 
was  originally  meant  the  union  of  the 
several  nations  under  the  Crescent  and 
their  progress  as  a  modern  state)  is  to 
the  effect,  that,  when  the  Lord  of  all 
Mohammedans  declares  holy  war  against 
the  enemies  of  Islam,  who  plunder  the 
countries  of  Islam  and  slaughter  their 
inhabitants  or  reduce  them  into  slavery, 
it  is  the  duty  of  all  Mohammedans  in 
this  world  to  take  part  in  this  war  with 
life  and  goods;  that  therefore  especially 
the   Mohammedan   subjects   of   France, 


46  The  Holy  War 

Russia,  and  England  are  also  obliged  to 
participate  in  it;  that  those  who  neglect 
this  duty  and  avoid  the  struggle  incur 
the  anger  of  God;  that,  however,  Moham- 
medans who  live  under  the  rule  of  the 
said  powers  or  their  allies  and  help  them 
wage  war  against  Germany  and  Austria, 
the  supporters  of  Turkey,  commit  a 
great  sin  that  will  certainly  bring  on  the 
wrath  of  God.  This  proclamation  of  the 
prescriptions  of  the  Divine  Law  as  applied 
to  the  political  situation  of  the  moment, 
and  according  to  the  pronouncement  of 
its  authoritative  interpreter,  served  as 
the  basis  of  a  manifesto  of  the  Sultan 
to  the  army  and  navy,  issued  on  No- 
vember 12,  1914. 

This  manifesto  assumes  that  Russia, 
together  with  England  and  France,  has 
started  the  hostilities ;  that  Turkey  there- 
fore was  forced  to  take  up  arms;  that 
Russia  anyway  had  not  during  three  cent- 


**Made  in  Germany"  47 

uries  let  one  opportunity  escape  to  harm 
Turkey;  that  millions  of  Mohammedans 
are  suffering  under  the  tyrannical  rule 
of  the  said  powers;  that  therefore  the 
holy  war  has  been  declared,  upon  the 
issue  of  which  not  only  the  welfare  of 
the  Turkish  Empire  but  also  the  life  and 
future  of  three  hundred  million'  of  Mo- 
hammedans depend.  The  mercy  of  Allah 
and  the  support  of  the  Prophet  will  turn 
the  struggle  against  the  enemies  of  Islam, 
undertaken  together  with  Germany  and 
Austria,  into  victory. 

Constantinople  would  not  be  Constan- 
tinople if  these  extravagant  utterances  of 
the  Committee^  had  not  been  followed 

^  This  computation  is  taken  from  the  speech  delivered 
by  the  German  Emperor  in  1898  by  the  grave  of  Saladin; 
the  population  then  appears  not  to  have  increased  in  the 
last  sixteen  years. 

^  In  order  to  fully  appreciate  the  unctuously-fanatical 
jetwa  and  proclam.ation,  one  has  to  bear  in  mind  that  the 
real  authors  of  both  documents,  Enver,  Talaat,  et  al.^  are 
practically  free-thinkers. 


48  The  Holy  War 

by  a  demonstration,  a  numdyashi.  When 
in  1908  I  was  witnessing  the  first  two 
months  of  the  revolution  brought  about 
by  the  military  under  the  direction  of  the 
Committee,  no  day  passed  without  a 
number  of  those  numdyashi;  masses  of 
people  who  jostled  behind  a  couple  of 
flags  with  the  legend  "Liberty,  Equality, 
and  Fraternity,"  halted  in  front  of  some 
public  buildings  or  residences  of  persons 
in  authority  and  there  applauded  speeches 
of  which  nobody  could  understand  any- 
thing. If  one  asked  the  shouters  what 
it  was  all  about,  one  was  told:  ''revolu- 
tion, liberty,  hasn't  the  police  been 
abolished?"  and  the  like.  In  a  similar 
manner  the  Committeemen  on  November 
14th  treated  the  inhabitants  to  a  numd- 
yashi lasting  fully  eight  hours. 

In  the  mosque  of  Mehmed  the  Con- 
queror, which  commemorates  the  greatest 
victory  of  the  Turks  over  Christianity, 


*'Made  in  Germany"  49 

the  conquest  of  Constantinople  in  1452, 
the  questions  and  answers  outhned  above 
were  read  aloud,  the  fetwa,  that  is,  of 
the  holy  war.  Prayers  were  said,  long 
speeches  were  held,  there  was  no  end  to 
the  jubilation.  The  procession  passed 
through  the  main  parts  of  the  city,  waited 
upon  the  Grand  Vizier,  and — demon- 
strated in  front  of  the  German  and  the 
Austrian  embassies.  Nazim-bey  and 
Mukhtar-bey,  faithful  Committeemen, 
respectively  complimented  the  German 
and  the  Austrian  ambassadors  and  their 
speeches  were  answered  by  the  ambas- 
sadors. The  addresses  exchanged  at  the 
German  embassy  would  not  have  been 
worded  differently  by  Dr.  Grothe  him- 
self. For  the  German  ambassador  did 
not  only  speak  of  Germany  and  Turkey, 
but  of  their  common  struggle  for  the  real 
welfare  of  the  Mohammedan  world;  of 
Germany's  friendship  for  the  Empire  of 


50  The  Holy  War 

the  Ottomans,  but  especially  for  the  ad- 
herents of  Islam,  before  all  of  whom,  as 
soon  as  the  German  and  Turkish  arms 
have  achieved  victory,  there  lies  a  glorious 
future.  The  Austrian  ambassador  was 
a  little  more  cautious  and  less  Moham- 
medan in  his  reply,  and  only  mentioned 
the  holy  war  which  the  Empire  of  the  Ot- 
tomans is  waging  together  with  Austria, 
and  the  sympathy  which  unites  Austria 
and  Turkey.  But  the  whole  show  must 
have  made  on  the  Mohammedans,  who 
would  not,  as  we  do,  think  first  of  all  of 
a  musical  comedy  of  Offenbach,  this 
impression,  if  any:  that  Germany  and 
Austria  have  put  themselves  in  the  service 
of  Turkey  for  waging  a  jihad;  for  natu- 
rally, of  the  three,  Turkey  is  the  only  one 
that  can  be  involved  in  a  jihad.  To  call 
a  war  between  kdfirs  (unbelievers)  a 
jihad  is  for  a  good  Mohammedan  either 
blasphemous  or  ridiculous. 


**Made  in  Germany"  51 

Grothe  has  thus  voiced  the  sentiments 
of  the  ruling  classes  in  his  country,  not 
only  where  he  discussed  the  economic 
relations  of  Germany  in  most  recent  times 
and  in  the  future,  but  also  where  he 
treated  of  the  stirring  up  of  the  slum- 
bering Mohammedan  fanaticism  in  the 
interest  of  Germany.  This  makes  it 
somewhat  less  inexplicable  to  me  that 
my  esteemed  colleague,  Professor  C.  H. 
Becker  at  Bonn,  who  until  recently  hon- 
ourably represented  the  science  of  Islam 
in  the  Colonial  Institute  at  Hamburg, 
should  also  have  been  swept  away  by  the 
incredible  jihdd-craze,  which  at  present 
seems  to  possess  German  statesmen.  His 
pamphlet  Germany  a7td  Islam'  breathes 


^  It  is  one  of  a  long  series  of  "Political  Pamphlets" — 
Politische  Flugschriften — edited  by  Ernst  Jackh,  and 
which  numbers  among  its  contributors  Prince  von  Biilow 
(again)  and  other  celebrities.  Further,  Becker  published 
in  the  collection  of  Bonner  Vaterldndische  Reden  und  Vor- 
trdge  wdhrend  des  Krieges  a  lecture  on  "  Deutsch-Tiirkische 


52  The  Holy  War 

the  same  spirit  as  Grothe's,  although  it  is 
favourably  distinguished  from  the  latter 
by  its  more  moderate  tone  and,  it  goes 
without  saying,  by  its  knowledge  of 
Isl^m. 

Becker  materially  supplements  Grothe's 
picture  of  the  future  relations  between 
Germany  and  Turkey,  by  including  in 
his  program  of  protection  of  Turkey  the 
military  and  political  renascence  of  the 
Empire  of  the  Crescent,  in  order  that  it 
may  be  re-created  into  a  modern  consti- 
tutional state  with  a  respectable  army. 
Not  only  German  products  and  German 
capital,  but  also  German  spirit  must  set 
to  work  in  Turkey.  It  must  do  so  ac- 
cording to  a  better  method  than  that 
used  by  France  and  England  in  their 
colonies:  "a  sound  common-school  edu- 

Interessengemeinschaft"  (Community  of  Interests  between 
Germany  and  Turkey);  in  the  Siiddeutsche  Monatsliejte 
an  article  **  England  und  Egypten,"  and  in  Das  Grossere 
Deutschland  an  article  "  England  und  der  Islam." 


**Made  in  Germany**  53 

cation  according  to  modem  methods,  but 
on  the  basis  of  the  traditional  oriental 
culture  and  supported  by  the  best  powers 
of  Islamic  religion.*'  We  shall  revert 
to  this.  First  a  few  remarks  in  con- 
nexion with  the  picture,  which  may  be 
seen  in  the  writings  of  both  Grothe  and 
Becker,  of  the  growth  of  political  har- 
mony between  Germany  and  Turkey, 
temporarily  leaving  aside  that  which 
may  be  achieved  through  the  Caliphate 
and  through  Moslim  fanaticism. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  Germany, 
in  view  of  the  rapidly  increased  interests 
which  she  has  gained  in  Turkey,  would 
like  to  reduce  to  the  smallest  proportions 
the  dangers  and  difficulties  that  may  be 
caused  by  competitors.  It  is  just  as 
easy  to  see  that  Turkey  would  after  all 
prefer  to  deal  with  Germany,  as  through 
this  contact  loss  of  territory  was  not  so 


54  The  Holy  War 

much  to  be  feared.  ''After  all,"  so  I 
said  intentionally;  for  there  must  have 
been  moments  when  the  Sultan  or  the 
Committee  must  have  thought:  Where 
is  that  friendship?  Under  Abdulhamid 
the  German  affection  was  expressed  only 
to  him  who  had  all  power  vested  in  him, 
but  who  is  now  generally  considered  to 
have  been  the  greatest  enemy  his  people 
ever  knew.  From  1888  to  1908  Germany 
ignored  the  Turkish  people,  because  it 
could  not  be  of  use  to  Germany.  Any 
one  knowing  something  of  the  nature  of 
European  political  friendship  will  not 
wonder  at  this  any  more  than  at  Emperor 
William's  small  interest  in  the  fate  of 
the  once-beloved  Abdulhamid,  when  the 
latter  was  forced  by  the  Committee  first 
to  parade  as  a  friend  of  liberty  and  later 
to  disappear. 

Whoever  sought  favour  or  advantage 
in  Turkey  after  1908,  had  to  force  it  or 


"Made  in  Germany*'  55 

beg  it  from  the  Committee.  The  latter 
could  not  at  once  trust  Germany,  as  also 
our  German  writers  remark,  because  the 
liberal  Turks,  who  had  fled  their  country 
before  the  revolution,  were  given  the  cold 
shoulder  in  Germany  on  account  of  the 
friendship  with  the  despot.  When  Austria 
availed  herself  of  the  general  confusion 
after  the  revolution,  first  to  help  in  the 
complete  detachment  of  Bulgaria  from 
Turkey,  afterwards  to  annex  a  piece  of 
Turkish  territory  herself,  Germany  did 
not  raise  one  finger  to  keep  its  ally  from 
an  amputation  so  painful  to  Turkey. 
Later  on  Italy  took  Tripoli  and  Turkey 
found  it  difficult  to  fully  appreciate  the 
fact  that  Germany  was  the  only  one  in  the 
Triple  Alliance  who  did  not  take  anything, 
because  Turkey  knew,  as  well  as  anybody 
else,  what  natural  obstacles  there  were  to 
such  an  undertaking.  Where  no  such 
natural  obstacles  existed,  Germany  took 


56  The  Holy  War 

her  part  as  greedily  as  the  others;  and 
in  Africa  she  even  has  subjected  two  mil- 
lion Mohammedans  to  her  authority,  an 
authority  which  will  not  be  found  by  those 
concerned  to  be  less  tyrannical  than 
the  British-Indian  and  North-African 
Mohammedans,  according  to  Sultan 
Mehmed  Reshad  and  according  to 
Becker,  find  the  British  or  French  ad- 
ministration. 

Now  Becker  may  argue:  those  Moham- 
medans were  already  under  our  rule  be- 
fore our  great  infatuation  with  Turkey 
and  Islam  began,  and,  besides,  the  coal- 
black  Moslems  do  not  count  for  much 
even  in  the  eyes  of  Turks  and  Arabs. 
But  this  is  not  a  serious  answer  to  the 
objection,  the  more  so  since  Islam  not 
only  repudiates  the  contempt  for  negroes 
theoretically,  but  because  practically  all 
ways  have  ever  been  much  more  widely 
open  to  gifted  negroes  in  Moslim  than  in 


**Made  in  Germany"  57 

Christian  countries.  To  be  sure,  Becker 
has  estimated  the  number  of  oppressed 
Mohammedans  who  must  now  be  helped 
by  Germany  at  only  one  hundred  and 
fifty  million;  so  that  only  Russia,  Eng- 
land, and  France  are  counted  as  oppres- 
sors. But  the  Sultan  in  his  manifesto 
has  mentioned  the  full  three  hundred 
million,  at  which  the  Kaiser  estimated 
the  adherents  of  Islam,  as  victims  to  be 
set  free,  and  has  thus  by  mistake  included 
amongst  them  the  two  million  German 
subjects  and  the  Moslims  under  Austrian 
and  Italian  rule,  not  to  mention  any 
others. 

During  the  Balkan  War,  the  independ- 
ence of  Turkey  was  certainly  no  less 
seriously  menaced  than  was  now  the 
case  before  the  jVAadZ-declaration ;  but 
even  then  it  received  little  support  from 
its  German  friend.  Grothe  remarks  that 
for  the  sake  of  Turkey  alone  it  would 


58  The  Holy  War 

have  been  difficult  to  stir  up  in  Germany 
sufficient  enthusiasm  for  a  war,  whereas 
now,  against  the  rivals,  England  and 
Russia,  it  has  been  found  so  easy.  Still, 
it  will  have  to  be  admitted  that  the  effect 
of  Emperor  William's  visits  to  the  Sultan, 
with  which  according  to  Becker  and 
Grothe,  the  conscious  Islam-policy  of 
Germany  was  inaugurated,  has  not  de- 
veloped normally  but  that  it  has  long 
remained  exceedingly  latent. 

All  this  may  emphasize  the  some- 
what one-sided  character  of  Germany's 
policy  still  more  than  the  writings  of 
Becker  and  Grothe,  but  it  does  not  do 
away  with  the  fact  that  under  the  present 
political  constellation,  Turkey  herself  may 
derive  great  advantage  from  the  alliance 
with  Germany.  But,  if  now  we  imagine 
the  future  as  the  German  writers  desire 
it,  the  situation  stripped  of  all  accessories 


"Made  in  Germany''  59 

appears  like  this:  Turkey  freed  by  Ger- 
many from  all  troublesome  meddling  of 
England,  France,  and  Russia,  will  fall 
under  German  guardianship,  and,  though 
with  careful  avoidance  of  the  name,  it 
will  become  a  German  protectorate.  Its 
army,  its  administration,  its  finances, 
everything  will  have  to  be  thoroughly 
reorganized  by  Germany.  The  relation 
will  be  different  in  form  only  from  the 
protectorate  of  France  in  Morocco  and 
that  of  England  in  many  a  Mohammedan 
principality.  In  calmer  times  eulogies 
on  the  method  by  which  the  English  in 
India,  the  French  in  Northern  Africa, 
ruled  their  Mohammedans,  have  never 
been  lacking  in  Germany;  although  criti- 
cism and  indignation  were  never  lacking 
either,  when  German  interests  were  at 
stake.  They  talked  of  the  pax  Britannica 
and  of  the  pax  Gallica,  which  had  replaced 
the    former    insecurity,    confusion,    and 


6o  The  Holy  War 

corruption.  Even  England's  work  in 
Egypt  was  appreciated,  and  favourable 
opinions  were  heard  about  the  Islam- 
policy  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia.  We 
have  no  reason  to  expect  less  favourable 
results  of  a  German  protectorate  in  Tur- 
key; nay  it  would  even  be  possible  that 
they  might  avoid  many  mistakes  of  their 
predecessors  and  that  the  end  might 
prove  a  blessing  to  Turkish  countries. 
But  the  Germans  would  certainly  find 
that  the  gratitude  of  the  Turks  would 
end  when  the  absolutely  unavoidable 
interference  would  start  in  earnest,  even 
if  the  Turks  did  not  fail  to  recognize  the 
advantage  to  themselves  of  some  of  the 
reforms  determined  upon. 

Besides,  the  opinions  of  German  experts 
about  Turkey  and  about  Islam,  espe- 
cially about  their  possibilities  for  reor- 
ganization, are  not,  at  any  rate  were  not 
before  this  war,  at  all  the  same  as  those 


**Made  in  Germany"  ,6i 

which  are  now  so  warmly  defended 
by  Grothe  and  Becker.  Professor  Joh. 
Marquart,  at  present  Professor  in  the 
University  of  BerHn,  derides  in  the  preface 
of  his  work,  The  Benin-collection  of  the 
National  Museum  of  Ethnology  in  Leiden 
(19 1 3),  "the  alleged  function  of  Islam  as 
a  bearer  of  culture,"  and  he  speaks  with 
biting  irony  of  the  "  blessings  of  the  jiM(i, 
predatory  murder  on  the  path  of  Allah 
turned  into  a  religious  duty,"  i.  e.,  that 
duty  which  Germany  now  has  again 
impressed  on  Turkey.  It  was  not  only 
in  German  missionary  circles  that  Islam 
was  considered  as  the  enemy  who  was 
most  of  all  to  be  fought,  but  in  a  German 
colonial  congress  this  resolution  was 
adopted:  ''As  the  expansion  of  Islam  is 
a  serious  danger  to  the  development  of  our 
colonies,  the  colonial  congress  suggests  for 
earnest  consideration,''  etc. 

Professor     Martin     Hartmann,     who 


62  The  Holy  War 

teaches  the  science  of  Islam  at  the  Semi- 
nary for  Oriental  Languages  in  Berlin, 
and  whose  pen  has  given  us  a  number  of 
notable  writings  on  Islam  and  on  Turkey, 
never  tires  of  pointing  out  that  the  Mos- 
lims  are  kept  from  participating  in  cul- 
ture mainly  by  the  institutions  of  Isl^m, 
which  scorns  woman  and  despises  non- 
believers." 

He  calls  the  Caliphate  of  the  Ottoman 
Sultans  a  usurpation  which  could  only 
have  been  committed  through  contempt 
for  the  holy  tradition,  a  "  means  of  agita- 

^  The  following  is  a  short  anthology  of  titles  from  M. 
Hartmann's  writings  of  most  recent  years:  "Der  Islam^ 
1908,"  in  Mitteilungen  des  Seminars  fiir  Orient.  Spr.  in 
Berlin,  Jahrg.  xii.,  Abt.  ii.,  1909;  Die  Arabische  Frage, 
Leipzig,  1909;  Der  Islam,  Leipzig,  1909;  "Die  neuere 
Literatur  zum  Turkischen  Problem"  (Recent  Publications 
on  the  Turkish  Question),  in  Zeitschrift  fUr  Politik,  1909; 
Unpolitische  Brief e  aus  der  Tiirkei,  Leipzig,  1910  ( Non- 
political  Letters  from  Turkey) ;  Islam,  Mission  und  Politik, 
Leipzig,  1912;  Fiinf  Vortrdge  iiber  der  Islam,  Leipzig,  1912 
(Five  Lectures  on  Isl^m);  "Das  Ultimatum  des  Panislam- 
ismus"  (on  the  holy  war  against  Italy),  in  Das  Freie  Wort, 
Jahrg.  xi.,  No.  16;  "Mission  und  Kolonialpolitik,  "in 
Koloniale  Rundschau,  Heft  3,  Ma,rz,  191 1. 


**Made  in  Germany"  .63 

Hon,''  an  ''easy  way  to  he  considered  hy 
the  world  of  Islam  as  a  kind  of  fetish'' ;  he 
says  that  ''  this  double  quality  [of  the  Sul- 
tan-Caliph] has  never  been  recognized  by 
the  civilized  powers"  and  that  the  honest 
abandonment  of  this  title  would  rather 
strengthen  Turkey  than  weaken  her.  Of 
course  he  also  has  a  few  things  to  say  about 
the  holy  war.  About  this  he  intentionally 
put  his  opinion  on  record  when  the  word 
jihad  was  brought  up  by  the  Turks  in 
their  war  with  Italy  over  Tripoli,  and  he 
made  use  of  this  expression  which  has 
again  become  topical:  ''.  .  .  the  threat  of 
holy  war,  i,  e.,  of  war  against  all  unbelievers, 
except  against  those  who  are  expressly  de- 
signated to  the  community  by  the  leaders  of 
Islam  as  friends  of  Islam.  This  idea  is 
madness."  As  the  seat  of  the  agitation 
was  at  that  time  in  Berlin,  he  adds  to 
this:  ''Let  this  be  a  warning  against  the 
creation  of  unrest  by  the  excitation  of  reli- 


64  The  Holy  War 

gious  fanaticism .  A II  civilized  nations  will 
unanimously  stand  together  against  any  such 
attempt. ' '  I  could  quote  reams  of  print  with 
similar  contents ;  I  content  myself  with  one 
more:  ''Islam  is  a  religion  of  hate  and  of 
war.  It  must  not  be  suffered  to  be  the  ruling 
principle  in  a  nation  of  the  civilized  world.' ^ 
I  could  quote  at  least  as  many  utter- 
ances of  the  same  author  which  give  the 
impression  that  the  Turks  are  the  nation 
least  fitted  in  all  the  Turkish  Empire  to 
do  any  good  for  the  development  of  their 
country.  Everywhere,  where  the  Turk- 
ish element  had  obtruded  itself  on  other 
Mohammedans  at  the  point  of  the  sword, 
it  has  **  destroyed  cultural  possessions  and 
has  created  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  in 
the  way  of  cultural  values. ' '  Their  religious 
conceit  is  even  more  intolerable  than 
their  national  conceit.  The  Turks  of 
Constantinople  are  ''an  awful  pack'' 
("ein  schauderhaftes  Gesindel")  and  the 


**Made  in  Germany"  65 

**  honest  Anatolian  "  (who  also  appears  in 
Grothe)  is  a  product  of  legend.  And  such 
an  inferior  nation  ''wants  to  he  the  ruling 
element  in  the  great  empire  from  Scutari  and 
Prevesa  to  Van  and  Bassoraf' 

Professor  Hartmann  has  an  exceed- 
ingly lively  temperament,  and  I  would  not 
dream  of  endorsing  all  his  opinions  or 
denying  that  his  expressions  are  exagger- 
ated. But  in  knowledge  of  his  subject 
he  stands  far  higher  than  Grothe;  and 
as  regards  Turkey,  also  higher  than 
Becker,  together  with  whom  he  is  the 
chief  representative  of  the  science  of 
Isl^m  in  Germany.  Besides,  Becker  him- 
self has  formerly  expressed  himself  about 
the  Isl^m  question  in  much  the  same  way, 
although  in  a  more  moderate  form  and  in 
a  different  tone.  Naturally,  Becker  him- 
self has  been  the  first  to  feel  the  contrast 
between  his  joining  in  the  flourish  with 
the  words  Caliph  and  jihdd  in  his  latest 


66  The  Holy  War 

writings,  and  the  opinions  expressed  by 
him  in  former  times  of  quiet  scientific 
work.  He  himself  repeats  the  conclud- 
ing sentence  of  a  lecture  delivered  by  him 
in  Paris  in  1910:  '*  If  the  solidarity  of  Islam 
is  a  phantom,  the  solidarity  of  the  white 
race  is  a  reality,''  but  now  he  does  so  in 
order  to  weaken  the  impression  of  these 
words  and  to  limit  them  to  the  Isl^m  of 
the  negroes  in  Africa,  who  were  the  main 
subject  of  his  speech.  Probably  none  of 
the  audience  understood  this  limitation, 
as  the  words  quoted  were  immediately 
preceded  by  these:  "the  fear  that  one 
power  might  unite  with  Islim  to  thwart 
another,  does  not  seem  to  me  very  well 
founded."  Besides  Becker  had  formerly, 
e.  g.,  in  1904,  in  an  article  on  Panislamism 
represented  the  panislamistic  idea  as 
contrary  to  the  real  interests  of  Turkey' : 

^  *' Panislamismus,"   Archiv   fiir    Religionswissenschaftt 
Bd.  vii.,  1904. 


*'Made  in  Germany*  67 

''  The  Young  Turks  had  hoped  [after  the 
Russo-Turkish  War  of  1878]  to  put  an 
end  hy  their  reforms  just  to  that  religious 
element,  which  made  of  the  Sultan  above 
everything  else  the  Caliph,  the  protagonist 
of  Islam,  and  thus  made  impossible  the 
normal  development  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  which  after  all  is  mainly  made 
up  of  Christians."  And  in  the  German 
translation '  of  the  above-mentioned  lec- 
ture, which  was  delivered  in  Paris  in 
1 9 10,  the  following  additional  passage 
occiirs:  '^  The  Caliphate  of  the  Sultan  of 
Constantinople  was,  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Young-Turkish  revolution,  the  basis  of 
Turkey's  Islam-policy.  To  be  sure  Young 
Turkey  has  not  abandoned  the  claim  to 
the  Caliphate;  but  if  she  wishes  at  all  to 
grow  into  a  constitutional  state,  she  will 
have  to  make  as  little  use  of  it  as  possible. 

*  "Der  Islam  und  die  Kolonisiemng  Afrika's,"  in  Inter- 
nal. Wochenschrift  fiir  Wissenschaft,  Kunst  und  Technik, 
19  Febr.,  1910. 


68  The  Holy  War 

.  .  •  A  strong  Turkey,  it  goes  without 
saying,  will  never  claim  political  sover- 
eignty over  the  Islamic  subjects  of  other 
powers.  .  .  •" 

In  his  latest  pamphlet,  Deutschland  und 
der  Islam,  Becker  confesses  his  recent 
conversion  and  argues  that  his  long- 
cherished  notions  were  wrong.  He,  as 
well  as  Grothe,  dwells  at  length  on  the  two 
visits  paid  by  Emperor  William  to  Sultan 
Abdiilhamid  (1889  and  1898),  the  second 
one  combined  with  what  Grothe  calls 
*'a  political  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.** 
The  world  has  considered  these  visits, 
the  first  of  which  took  place  one  year  after 
the  concession  of  the  Anatolian  railway, 
that  is  to  say  in  1889,  as  overgorgeous 
demonstrations  of  Germany's  industrial 
and  commercial  interest  in  Tiurkey.  The 
way  it  was  done  made  many,  even  in 
Germany,  shrug  their  shoulders.  First 
of  all  Abdulhamid,  the  "blood-drinking" 


*'Made  in  Germany"  69 

tyrant,  in  whose  crimes  the  great  powers 
after  all  shared  the  guilt,  on  account  of 
what  Berard,  and  together  with  him 
Hartmann,  called  ''the  conspiracy  of  si- 
lence,'" seemed  a  strange  object  for  such 
a  hearty  expression  of  friendship,  which 
left  behind  it  in  Constantinople  a  lum- 
bering commemorative  fountain,  which 
according  to  experts  is  an  insult  to  good 
taste.  Furthermore,  the  impression  pro- 
duced on  the  Moslim  world  was  not  at 
all  such  as  was  intended.  To  be  sure,  it 
was  thought  remarkable  that  the  mon- 
arch of  a  powerful  European  empire 
should  go  twice  to  pay  homage  to  the 
Sultan,  the  more  as  it  was  known  that 
no  return- visits  of  the  Sultan  followed; 
the  caller  therefore  showed  himself  to  the 
inhabitants  as  the  inferior;  and  simple 
Mohammedan  souls,  who  draw  their 
knowledge  of  the  world's  map  and  the 
world's  history  more  from  legends  than 


70  The  Holy  War 

from  reality,  saw  in  this  a  confirmation 
of  their  belief  that  the  whole  earth  is 
subjected  to  the  mightiest  Moslim  sov- 
ereign, and  that  all  princes  are  his  vassals, 
even  if  they  are  in  parts  very  nnruly. 
Those  homages  in  no  way  contributed  to 
the  glory  of  Germany  in  the  East,  what- 
ever flatterers  may  palm  off  about  it  on 
German  travellers.  The  strangest  im- 
pression of  all,  however,  was  produced  on 
all  those  who  know  Islam  by  the  Em- 
peror's speech  on  his  second  journey 
(1898),  at  Damascus,  at  the  grave  of 
Saladin,  on  which  he  also  deposited  a 
wreath. 

Saladin  (Salah-ad-din)  has  become 
popular  in  Europe  through  the  history 
of  the  Crusades  and  especially  through 
Lessing;  in  the  Mohammedan  East  his 
name  has  been  long  forgotten,  except  by 
the  few  students  of  history  and  literature. 
These   know    him    as    an    unscrupulous 


''Made  in  Germany**  71 

politician,  who  by  faithlessness  and 
treason  had  risen  to  great  power,  and 
who  is  forgiven  much  because  he  was  a 
strictly  orthodox  kafir-hsiter;  and  not  as 
the  example  of  eighteenth-century  toler- 
ance which  Lessing  in  his  Nathan  der 
Weise  has  made  of  him.  On  the  grave  of 
this  hater  of  Christianity,  the  Emperor 
of  a  world-empire,  which,  as  Becker  re- 
minds us,  has  Christianity  as  its  state- 
religion,  spoke  these  words:  ''The  three 
hundred  million  Mohammedans  that  are 
scattered  through  the  world  may  rest  as- 
sured that  the  German  Emperor  will  eter- 
nally^ he  their  friend.'' 

This  part  of  the  display  has  made  as 
little  permanent  impression  in  the  Mos- 
lim  world  as  Saladin  himself ;  and  German 
scientists  at  that  time  shook  their  heads 
when  they  heard  of  it.  But  now  these 
words  suddenly  are  at  a  premium:  Grothe 

*  An  attribute  well  suited  indeed  to  political  friendship ! 


72  The  Holy  War 

and  Becker  give  their  interpretations  of 
them,  and  the  Turks  have  been  so  ener- 
getically reminded  of  them  that  Nazim- 
bey  quoted  them  in  his  address  to  the 
German  ambassador  and  that  the  Sultan 
by  mistake  borrowed  from  them  the  often- 
times corrected,  at  any  rate  very  anti- 
quated, census-figures  of  his  manifesto. 

Till  recently  Becker,  ''through  igno- 
rance," as  he  now  avers,  has  ''considered 
this  emphasizing  of  the  Caliph-title  hy 
Germany  as  a  mistake'';  but  now,  after 
Prince  von  Billow's  explanations  in 
Deutschland  unter  Kaiser  Wilhelm  II.,  he 
joyfully  discovers  in  it  the  first  powerful 
expression  of  "  a  conscious  German  Islam- 
policy  "  and  the  proof  ''that  German  policy 
has  from  the  first  taken  Islam  into  accomit 
as  an  inter  ^rational  factor,''  Becker's  sci- 
entific conscience,  in  this  conversion  and 
in  his  defence  of  the  adoption  of  the 
Caliphate  among  the  factors  of  interna- 


**Made  in  Germany"  73 

tional  politics,  is  not  so  untroubled  as 
that  of  Grothe,  who  does  not  seem  to  feel 
at  all  the  grotesqueness  of  this  Islam- 
policy.  At  any  rate,  Becker  says  that 
he  does  not  wish  to  be  considered  as 
having  expressed  an  opinion  on  the  rela- 
tion between  Turkey  and  Germany;  that 
he  restricts  himself  to  stating  the  fact 
that  such  a  relation  exists;  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  millions  of  dissatisfied 
Mohammedan  subjects  of  Etiropean 
nations  expect  their  salvation  from  Tur- 
key, and  that  the  hour  has  struck  for 
Germany  to  make  use  of  this  mood. 

Salvation  from  Turkey!  The  country 
of  which  Martin  Hartmann  quite  recently 
said  that  ''the  exclusion  of  the  Islamic- 
Turkish  rule  from  Europe  is  drawing 
near'';  and  that  ''she  [Turkey]  should 
have  beefi  already  long  ago  threatened  with 
being    placed    under    guardianship'';    or 


74  The  Holy  War 

again:  *^thus  will  only  come  more  quickly 
that  which  will  have  to  come  sometime^ 
anyway:  the  lapsing  of  political  power  from 
the  hands  of  dying  Turkdom'' ;  from  Ttir- 
key,  which,  according  to  Becker,  must  be 
re-created  and  under  the  energetic  direc- 
tion of  Germany  be  transformed  into  a 
modern  civilized  state,  a  thing  which  a 
few  years  ago  he  declared  to  be  feasible 
only  if  the  Caliphate-idea  were  either  en- 
tirely abandoned  or  emphasized  as  little 
as  possible ! 

How  is  it  that  Turkey  suddenly  is 
considered  able  to  do  that  which  until 
recently  had  been  put  aside  as  nonsense ; 
how  is  it  that  now  they  recommend 
as  useful  to  Turkey  what,  such  a  short 
time  ago,  was  considered  a  source  of 
certain  ruin?  When,  in  his  Ultimatum 
des  Panislamismus  Hartmann  scourged 
the  agitators  who  wished  to  give  to  the 
Turkish-Italian  conflict  the  character  of 


'*Made  in  Germany"  75 

a  religious  war,  he  at  the  same  time  gave 
the  sharpest  criticism  imaginable  of  Ger- 
many's present  attempt  to  revive  the 
dying  mediasval  fanaticism  of  the  Moham- 
medan world.  **  Turkey  can  only  exclaim: 
Heaven  protect  me  against  my  friends!'' 
— so  he  then  justly  said.  What  may  not 
Turkey  exclaim  now  that  her  best  friend 
is  exciting  her  to  religious  war,  and  pre- 
sently turns  over  to  her  the  Mohammedan 
prisoners  who  fought  against  Germany, 
in  order  to  submit  them  to  a  politico- 
religious  conversion  cure? 

We  can  only  attribute  all  this  to  the 
lamentable  upsetting  of  the  balance,  even 
in  the  intellectual  atmosphere,  of  what 
we  used  to  call  the  civilized  world.  For 
in  normal  times  we  know  that  the  Ger- 
mans are  far  too  sensible  and  logical  to 
digest  the  enormous  nonsense  that  a 
thing  which  in  general  would  be  con- 
sidered as  a  shame  for  mankind  and  a 


76  The  Holy  War 

catastrophe  for  Turkey  can  become  good 
and  commendable  as  soon  as  Germany 
places  herself  behind  or  beside  the  Cres- 
cent. We  do  not  know  what  will  be  the 
issue  of  many  of  the  present  terrible 
happenings;  but  this,  I  think,  I  may 
already  now  foretell  with  certainty,  that 
within  a  not  very  long  time  a  number  of 
German  writings  will  testify  that  also  in 
Germany  indignation  has  been  aroused 
by  the  despicable  game  that  is  being 
played  with  the  Caliphate  and  the  holy 
war. 

It  would  be  risky,  now  that  the  facts 
will  so  speedily  speak  their  incontrovert- 
ible language,  to  try  to  foretell  in  how 
far  the  attempt  to  light  the  blaze  of  a 
Mohammedan  religious  war  on  a  large 
scale,  and  thereby  to  cause  endless  confu- 
sion in  international  relations,  has  a 
chance  to  succeed.  Hartmann  formerly 
denied  the  possibility  with  full  conviction: 


**Made  in  Germany**  77 

*'.  .  .as  soon,''  said  he,  ''as  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  various  Islamic  groups  confer 
together  about  common  measures,  the  enor- 
mous differences  in  ethnical,  economic, 
and  intellectual  tendencies  among  the  two 
hundred  million  Mohammedans  show 
themselves! ' '  Becker,  who  formerly  called 
"  the  solidarity  of  Islam  a  phantom,'"  says 
now :  ' '  The  great  war  which  reveals  and 
decides  so  much,  will  also  bring  the  proof 
as  to  whether  the  often-discussed  inter- 
national solidarity  of  Islam  is  a  real 
factor  or  a  delusion ^ 

It  is  certain  that  if  Germany  persists 
in  her  present  "Islam-policy"  there  will 
be  no  lack  of  all  sorts  of  measures  destined 
to  put  before  the  Mohammedan  public 
the  histor}^  of  the  origins  of  that  policy 
and  the  new  relation  of  vassal  in  which 
the  re-created  Sultan- Caliph  finds  himself 
with  regard  to  Germany.  But  against 
a   Commander  of  the  Faithful,   himself 


78  The  Holy  War 

under  an  unbelieving  Commander,  even 
Mohammedans  of  the  old  stamp,  who 
otherwise  might  have  been  duped  by  the 
comedy,  will  have  serious  objections. 
The  main  basis  of  the  claim  of  the  Otto- 
man sultans  was  their  sword ;  not  a  sword 
that  would  be  drawn  and  sheathed  at  the 
order  of  an  unbelieving  ''ally." 

Fortunately,  we  need  not  worry  with  re- 
gard to  our  Dutch-Indian  Mohammedan 
population.  They  adopted  Islam  when 
the  Turkish  Empire  had  already  come 
into  existence,  but  without  Turkey's  no- 
ticing it ;  and  they  have  never  had  any 
contact  with  the  Crescent.  The  Sultan 
of  Rum,  as  they  call  the  Great  Lord  of 
Constantinople,  has  remained  a  legendary 
creature  for  them.  To  be  sure,  the  pan- 
islamistic  idea  has  penetrated  into  the 
East-Indian  Archipelago,  but  it  has  found 
little  favourable  ground.  The  large  mass 
of  the  lower  classes  remains  untouched, 


**Made  in  Germany"  79 

and  the  majority  of  the  higher  classes  is 
entirely  immune  against  this  politico- 
religious  mixture  of  deceit  and  nonsense. 
And  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that 
this  immunity  will  constantly  spread. 
For  if  Germany  has  quite  recently  inau- 
gurated her  *'  conscious  Islam-policy  "  with 
the  above-described  displays,  we  have 
already  had  for  a  few  years  longer  our 
conscious  educational  policy  towards  the 
native  population  which  history  has  en- 
trusted to  our  care;  and  against  that, 
Caliphate  and  holy  war  and  other  mediae- 
val iniquities  are  fortunately  powerless. 
If  we  only  unshakably  adhere  to  our 
centuries-old  guarantee  of  complete  reli- 
gious liberty  for  our  Mohammedans,  and 
at  the  same  time  continue  to  pursue  our 
educational  policy  at  a  constantly  in- 
creased pace,  we  shall  never  have  to  fear 
the  peculiar  sort  of  ''intellectual  weapons" 
which  now  for  the  first  time  are  put  into 


8o  The  Holy  War 

circulation  with  the  trade-mark  ''made 
in  Germany/'  Still,  we  keep  hoping 
in  the  interest  of  humanity  that  Germany 
will  before  long  withdraw  the  new  product 
from  the  market. 

The  holy  war  of  Islam  is,  as  we  have 
remarked  several  times,  a  thoroughly 
mediaeval  institution,  which  even  the 
Mohammedan  world  was  outgrowing. 
One  of  the  peculiarities  of  this  institution 
we  may  sincerely  admire :  holy  war  against 
co-members  of  the  Mohammedan  com- 
munity is  absolutely  excluded  by  the  law 
of  Islam.  The  restriction  of  the  com- 
munity to  Mohammedans,  to  those  who 
profess  the  same  dogma  about  what  is 
beyond  this  life,  is  mediaeval;  but  the 
consideration  of  strife  within  the  sphere 
of  the  community  as  impious,  provides 
an  excellent  foundation  for  the  highest  so- 
cial civilization  and  is  rather  humiliating 


1       5,       »       >       >  > 

.       l\     >       '         J        1 


>       >  >   3 


**  Made  inGermaiiy  >  *• ' '' '  'Bi 

for  the  modern  world.  Let  us  hear  what 
Martin  Hartmann  in  his  excited  tone 
writes  about  it:  ^' In  contrast  to  Isldniy 
where  war  is  on  principle  limited  to  war 
against  those  of  differejtt  belief  as  being 
*  unbelievers, '  nobody  in  the  Christian 
world  takes  exception  to  war  against  ad- 
herents of  the  same  faith,  and  here  the 
servants  of  the  church  of  Love  are  not  infre- 
quently the  most  zealous  in  the  urging,  that 
is,  in  denying  the  Gospel;  they  provide  to 
order  the  patriotic  gesture,  which  in  this 
case  represents  a  violation  of  the  fifth  com- 
mandment, not  to  mention  that  other  com- 
mandment: Thou  shall  love  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself'' 

Indeed,  in  Islam  it  is  only  necessary  to 
remove  the  mediaeval  restriction  of  the 
right  to  complete  political  existence, 
which  was  limited  to  members  of  the  same 
community,  and  to  expand  the  idea  of  the 
comjTLunity  to  one  embracing  the  whole 


82  The  Ff  oly  War 

world,  in  order  to  assure  absolute  world- 
peace,  an  absolute  command  of  the  divine 
law.  To  modern  states  which  have 
Mohammedans  as  subjects,  proteges,  or 
allies,  the  beautiful  task  is  reserved  of 
educating  these  and  themselves  at  the 
same  time  to  this  high  conception  of 
himian  society;  rather  than  leading  them 
back,  for  their  own  selfish  interests,  into 
the  ways  of  mediaeval  religious  hatred 
which  they  were  just  about  to  leave. 


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